N00425:164
Addresses to old men, and young men, and little children. In three discourses ...…
Addresses to old men, and young men, and little children. In three discourses ... To which may be added, a short scriptural catechism, accommodated unto their capacities. / By Cotton Mather.
Boston: printed by R. Pierce for Nicholas Buttolph, 1690
THE YOUNG MAN'S Glory. OR, A Wreath of Graces for the Head of YOUTH. › Application.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
O consider of it, and follow this one Counsel, Change your Service. Young men, are you not old enough to be bound •n•o some Service that may be for your future and endless benefit? Behold, such a Service I shall now set before you. I pray, ⟨p. 68⟩have the Service of the Devil; he is an bard master, and you shall have no wages from him, unless eternal vexation and confusion. 'Tis a bad counsel sometimes given unto young men, that they should Run-away from their masters; but as to this master, 'tis a good counsel, O Run away from him. You beat him, if you leave him. Wherefore Tear and Break your Covenant with Satan, for he has made you his own, by Covenant as well as Conquest. Had you written and signed such a Covenant in your Blood, as the monstrous Witches use to do, there were yet room for the annulling of it; how such then may that which is less Explicit, be Lamented, Repented, Nullified? Well then, repair to that Rightful and Righteous Lord, unto whom you owe all manner of Service; Repair to God in Christ, and say as in Isa. 26. 13. O Lord our God, other Lords besides thee, have had dominion over us, but by thee only will we make mention of thy Name. Even so, say unto him, Lord, I have hitherto been a Slave of the Devil, and I mourn to think that so much of my youth has been lost in this unhappy Slavery; but behold I now return to my glorious Creator and Redeemer; Lord, I desire that I may, Tresolve that I will, for the time to come, approve my self thy Servant, wholly devoted unto thy Fear for ever.
O consider of it, and follow this one Counsel, Change your Service. Young men, are you not old enough to be bound •n•o some Service that may be for your future and endless benefit? Behold, such a Service I shall now set before you. I pray, ⟨p. 68⟩have the Service of the Devil; he is an bard master, and you shall have no wages from him, unless eternal vexation and confusion. 'Tis a bad counsel sometimes given unto young men, that they should Run-away from their masters; but as to this master, 'tis a good counsel, O Run away from him. You beat him, if you leave him. Wherefore Tear and Break your Covenant with Satan, for he has made you his own, by Covenant as well as Conquest. Had you written and signed such a Covenant in your Blood, as the monstrous Witches use to do, there were yet room for the annulling of it; how such then may that which is less Explici, be Lamented, Repented, Nullify'd? Well then, repair to that Rightful and Righteous Lord, unto whom you ow all manner of Service; Repair to God in Christ, and say as in